I mean did India not shop around for Western radar and BVR for such a superb plane? Or even started own big radar with help of western producers? You see… They will produce a lot in India (200?)! It is worth to think about that if Pak shops for just hundred Grifo’s.

What western BVR missiles could they buy? Would the US really sell AMRAAMs to India? Even if they would, wouldn’t that also automatically mean AMRAAMs to Pakistan? When were the MKIs ordered? Was India not under some kind of sanctions at the time?

From the BBC:

Russia and China – former Cold War foes – will hold an unprecedented military exercise in the second half of 2005.
The war game, involving naval ships and aircraft, will take place on Chinese territory, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

China has become a major market for Russian weapons. In the past five years these exports have risen to $5bn.

Russia and China have developed what they call a strategic partnership since the end of the Cold War.

Russia will not bring large numbers of servicemen to the exercises, but mostly state-of-the art weapons, including submarines and probably strategic bombers, Mr Ivanov was quoted as saying.

Russian observers say that China gets half of Russia’s weapons exports.
Mr Ivanov visited China earlier and described his discussions on Russian weapons deliveries as “record-breaking”.
Moscow and Beijing share the concept of a multi-polar world – opposing what they see as US global dominance.
Mr Ivanov said that in 2005 Russia would also hold joint exercises with other former Soviet countries, Nato and, separately, with France.

Must be some joint excercise if the BBC are reporting it.

Well pointless programms

EF and Rafale. Why did Europe need 2 fighters ?? I will never understand.
Eurocopter Tiger : Why did Europe need another light attack helo, when the A129 Mangusta was already fully developed

Seahawk,
Something Americans (including Canadians in this…) evidently find quite difficult to grasp is that Europe is actually not one country. Even the EU is essentially a very loose confederation of states with their own interests and own military and economic needs. Anyway, you have to give credit to France for proving that it can be done without the Germans :diablo: .

After the ousting of former Federal Yugoslav President MILOSEVIC in October 2000, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition government implemented stabilization measures and embarked on an aggressive market reform program. After renewing its membership in the IMF in December 2000, Yugoslavia continued to reintegrate into the international community by rejoining the World Bank (IBRD) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). A World Bank-European Commission sponsored Donors’ Conference held in June 2001 raised $1.3 billion for economic restructuring. An agreement rescheduling the country’s $4.5 billion Paris Club government debts was concluded in November 2001; it wrote off 66% of the debt.

I dont recall anyone suggesting they’d turn Serbia into a land of milk and honey?. They have gotten rid of a regime that was prosecuting some very nasty policies, keeping the world community of their backs and they’ve not done too badly financially out of it at all!. In my opinion they are very much on the plus side of the ledger post-Milosevic.

Just an off-topic correction to make here, apologies. They have done very badly financially out of it all – the ’99 air-campaign caused an estimated $12 billion of damage to the economy. After the air-campaign the western powers promised the Serbs as a nation that this damage would be repaid as soon as Milosevic was replaced and a democratic (which, in this case, means pro-western) government was set up. After Milosevic was (“illegally”) sent to the Hague the US government saw fit to reward the Serbian people with a financial aid package worth $40 million – all of which, one way or the other, ended up in the coffers of the Democratic Party (one of a number of parties in the DOS Coalition which overthrew Milosevic – the most pro-western one). They proceded to spend the money on some new offices and BMWs for their party members.

Perhaps they’re not queuing up but there have been sales. Homework for tonight: do the research yourself and come back to tell us what you found.

“so before Iraq and Afganistan what countries did the US go about invading?”

Well there was the air campaign and subsequent deployment of troops to Yugoslavia and before that it was Iraq 1…

Anyway, lets not draw up a list of US foreign interventions in the last hundred years – I doubt anybody has the time for that.

Thank you. Just to prove the idea. The Russian MiG-29s will not have a modified radar. The Russian Su-27s will, to make it R-77 capable.
When the R-27EA/R-77 are interchangeable I see no problem. But what are the advantages of R-77 over R-27EA then?

I was refering to Malaysian MiG-29s – not Russian ones. The former are, reportedly, already R-77 capable.

Sean,

Even though not interchangeable perhaps being able to support one Russian active radar AAM might mean being able to support another. Okay, even if this is not the case (which seems pretty likely), addapting the MiG-29s, to make them R-27EA capable, shouldn’t be overly complicated or expensive.